Symphony D.
Deity
Retroactive deletion.
On Moving or Staying
- Thread starter Symphony D.
- Start date
Symphony D.
Deity
Retroactive deletion.
Terrance888
Discord Reigns
I DO. A couple 'ol failed plans will have them slavering for a set of good orders to base out of (like me) and can trigger a golden age. (see Nes_cz! )
Jason The King
Deity
thanks symphony for putting all the arguments into a logical format.
There is no problem spreading it elsewhere (not moving this community) because we ourselves will be safe from said change. NES colonies elsewhere may be interesting to watch and see how they develop, but they may develop, to the majority's opinion, into something unattractive to the average NESer.
I do not see how we can't be free here. If people want to move to another forum, why can't they do it and keep these forums the way they are? If it develops into something better, in their opinion, somewhere else then they can play there. I see it in a different way, its a choice between: risk vs. security. I personally do not want to risk seeing everything that has grown here for the past 5 or so years thrown away.
1. I believe we are experiencing net gain of people, but I guess we will wait until we have some statistics to look onto. Again I suggest someone neutral like Abaddon to draw these up.
2. Your advanced games have been tried in the past with 25, 30+ members. They fail because they are too big for a mod to handle. Now I can imagine there is a mod who might be able to handle a 30+ player game, but when you consider half of those might be people who have never played an NES before, the odds of having a successful megalithic game are undoubtedly against you.
3. In a big NES such as the one you are speaking about, a good MOD will sufficiently have the NPC factors interact with the major, player-run nations. In a modern NES, there are but 20 or so nations that seriously require a player, the rest semi-important and then the unimportant can be places a MOD can sponsor events in.
I direct you to a previous statement i made in this post. As you say the ratio of those who take time to integrate/those who integrate quickly may stay the same as the ratio here. Only the volume changes. If true, which I don't believe, but if it were true, then the volume would still be a huge problem for MODs.
I am not just talking about just spammers and no-goods who would come here should a move to an undesirable place happen, I am also talking about those who want to learn but take a long time in doing so (example: charles li). We cannot deploy forum moderators on people who want to learn but aren't getting enough attention from NES mods.
Perhaps, but until we have such establishments in place and operational we need to stick around here. Even with the said devices running, we have noobs who are still in need of supervision and mentoring.
At the least, lets get those things running, and test it out on the next few noobs that come.
symphony D said:
There is no problem spreading it elsewhere (not moving this community) because we ourselves will be safe from said change. NES colonies elsewhere may be interesting to watch and see how they develop, but they may develop, to the majority's opinion, into something unattractive to the average NESer.
symphony d said:
I do not see how we can't be free here. If people want to move to another forum, why can't they do it and keep these forums the way they are? If it develops into something better, in their opinion, somewhere else then they can play there. I see it in a different way, its a choice between: risk vs. security. I personally do not want to risk seeing everything that has grown here for the past 5 or so years thrown away.
symphony d said:
1. I believe we are experiencing net gain of people, but I guess we will wait until we have some statistics to look onto. Again I suggest someone neutral like Abaddon to draw these up.
2. Your advanced games have been tried in the past with 25, 30+ members. They fail because they are too big for a mod to handle. Now I can imagine there is a mod who might be able to handle a 30+ player game, but when you consider half of those might be people who have never played an NES before, the odds of having a successful megalithic game are undoubtedly against you.
3. In a big NES such as the one you are speaking about, a good MOD will sufficiently have the NPC factors interact with the major, player-run nations. In a modern NES, there are but 20 or so nations that seriously require a player, the rest semi-important and then the unimportant can be places a MOD can sponsor events in.
symphony d said:
I direct you to a previous statement i made in this post. As you say the ratio of those who take time to integrate/those who integrate quickly may stay the same as the ratio here. Only the volume changes. If true, which I don't believe, but if it were true, then the volume would still be a huge problem for MODs.
Symphony D said:
I am not just talking about just spammers and no-goods who would come here should a move to an undesirable place happen, I am also talking about those who want to learn but take a long time in doing so (example: charles li). We cannot deploy forum moderators on people who want to learn but aren't getting enough attention from NES mods.
symph said:
Perhaps, but until we have such establishments in place and operational we need to stick around here. Even with the said devices running, we have noobs who are still in need of supervision and mentoring.
At the least, lets get those things running, and test it out on the next few noobs that come.
I have never really been against a good lateral move or vertical move(like to Civ4 Stories & Tales or even by ourselves in All Other Games), I am just completely opposed to bad lateral moves (a subforum next to Forum Games, a subforum of World History) or our own website.
There are people here whom I really really like that are newish and some I truly despise. Just like every other "generation". I really don't see a problem with this "noob horde" that some people see. I think people who are afraid of that are underrating the ability of the "NESing community" to adapt.
I think more attention by the mods is actually a good thing. It's not like they are the thought police and will close down NES' they dont like...their job will be to cut down on the spam, cut down on flame wars, etc. What is so wrong with that?
There are people here whom I really really like that are newish and some I truly despise. Just like every other "generation". I really don't see a problem with this "noob horde" that some people see. I think people who are afraid of that are underrating the ability of the "NESing community" to adapt.
I think more attention by the mods is actually a good thing. It's not like they are the thought police and will close down NES' they dont like...their job will be to cut down on the spam, cut down on flame wars, etc. What is so wrong with that?
Symphony D.
Deity
Retroactive deletion.
Kozmos
Jew Detective
Oh I've seen this malicious logic result in a destruction of several fun forum and story games.
das
Regeneration In Process
M01. Greater Visibility is not, in my opinion, a wholly valid argument in favour of the movement (admittedly, it is not a wholly valid argument against it either). That it is true is, ofcourse, undeniable. What is interesting is just by how much will the visibility be increased; North King (as one of the main "movers") predicts lower figures while I predict higher ones.
Not sure, I find Abaddon's information about the population growth as presented in the previous thread to be believable. Ofcourse, a more detailed and in-depth report is called for.
Maybe I mis-read that first part, but I think I see a significant contradiction here. If it will only attract so many individuals, how could this problem be solved by adding more people that won't be attracted to it?
Besides, I'm not sure if even the best moderator could handle over fourty people efficiently, regardless of their skill or intent. It certainly would be a major logistical challenge; and possibly this is part of the expalnation of why so many modern day NESes failed even when they did get an appropriately large amount of players.
How do you see those large-scale projects that you speak of working? Not saying that it is wholly impossible; there certainly are some solutions that might at least alleviate the difficulty. Still, what is it that you are talking about exactly?
M02. Better Technical Classification. Quite.
M03. No Effective Change in Post Quality Per Volume. Partly true with regards to roughly unchanged quotas of the bad (in their many varieties) and the good, but it has always been easier to destroy than to build: therefore any one more spammer, flamer or metagamer would cause much more damage than any one more decent NESer could do good.
Also, as I've said in the previous thread, a sufficiently large amount of "bad people" (for the lack of a better immediately-obvious general term) will be self-sustainable and mutually-encouraging, whereas here they are far more outnumbered and overwhelmed and so are limited in the damage that they could do.
Lastly, "better the devil you know".
M04. Transition Would be Simple. True, yes. Significant, scarcely - it would've been significant only if it were not simple.
I think it is best to assume for our purposes that we can easily enough embark on any major course of action - the exact consequences matter much more to us than the technical difficulties of getting it done.
S01. Don't Fix What Isn't Broken. I'd like to add that it would be much easier to deal with various specific faults in a stable situation. Our movement and the consequent influx of newcomers would be at least temporarily disruptive and distractive. It might break what isn't optimised, so to speak.
A nice idea for the future might be to optimise the community specifically for the integration of new members - we have been making progress in that direction, ofcourse, but there are some other things that could be done, and the present system is more fine-tuned for a gradual trickle than for major waves.
S02. Greater Influx of Poor Quality Players. I'd say it has less to do with quality (how do you measure their "quality", anyway?) and more with their experience, which makes this irrefutable but I suppose somewhat redundant.
Note that I have never (at least as far as I recall) made much of it myself.
Which, incidentally, is a pretty good argument against North King's concerns about good would-be NESers in other areas. They still do find our way to us - presumably at least to some extent thanks to the presence of other NESers in the Other Games forum and other such congregations. Our population is growing under the present arrangement.
One might also add that this way we get less casual browsing players that might end up leaving abruptly after having already expressed interest and consumed some efforts at assisting them. The people that usually get here are the people who are already somewhat interested in this.
Basically, while it is wrong to talk of the actual quality of NESers, it appears entirely appropriate to talk about the quality of our community as a whole. Indeed, a larger population would also be less unified, and a more open population would be less attached and disciplined. Just look at the ancient Greek city-states, and at their relations with the metics at the time of their peak and at the time of their decline. I, for one, insist that there is a correlation, albeit in all due fairness an indirect one. Still, it's something to remember.
Incidentally, that answers your question: I don't mind seeing new people, but only in small portions so that we could digest them properly.
And lastly:
S03. Radical Alterations to Community Culture Will Result. Mhm.
I'm not convinced that anyone seriously even considered it possible that anybody here would be "shocked" by the fact that we moved. I don't even think there would be any shock involved whatsoever, unless things go much worse than even I might predict.
Not quite. I am not at all opposed to expanding our system as long as it is done in a comparatively safe way - safe and controllable with regards to its effect on the main community. Besides, it seems like a much better way to both gather a genuinely new population and cultivate diversity without our own elites and traditions hanging over the locals more than is absolutely necessary. Indeed, it might even be described as the best of two worlds!
Except inasmuch as it demands a hefty amount of organisation and dedication to pull it off. That's what we call a "bummer".
Not sure, I find Abaddon's information about the population growth as presented in the previous thread to be believable. Ofcourse, a more detailed and in-depth report is called for.
Maybe I mis-read that first part, but I think I see a significant contradiction here. If it will only attract so many individuals, how could this problem be solved by adding more people that won't be attracted to it?
Besides, I'm not sure if even the best moderator could handle over fourty people efficiently, regardless of their skill or intent. It certainly would be a major logistical challenge; and possibly this is part of the expalnation of why so many modern day NESes failed even when they did get an appropriately large amount of players.
How do you see those large-scale projects that you speak of working? Not saying that it is wholly impossible; there certainly are some solutions that might at least alleviate the difficulty. Still, what is it that you are talking about exactly?
M02. Better Technical Classification. Quite.
M03. No Effective Change in Post Quality Per Volume. Partly true with regards to roughly unchanged quotas of the bad (in their many varieties) and the good, but it has always been easier to destroy than to build: therefore any one more spammer, flamer or metagamer would cause much more damage than any one more decent NESer could do good.
Also, as I've said in the previous thread, a sufficiently large amount of "bad people" (for the lack of a better immediately-obvious general term) will be self-sustainable and mutually-encouraging, whereas here they are far more outnumbered and overwhelmed and so are limited in the damage that they could do.
Lastly, "better the devil you know".
M04. Transition Would be Simple. True, yes. Significant, scarcely - it would've been significant only if it were not simple.
I think it is best to assume for our purposes that we can easily enough embark on any major course of action - the exact consequences matter much more to us than the technical difficulties of getting it done.
S01. Don't Fix What Isn't Broken. I'd like to add that it would be much easier to deal with various specific faults in a stable situation. Our movement and the consequent influx of newcomers would be at least temporarily disruptive and distractive. It might break what isn't optimised, so to speak.
A nice idea for the future might be to optimise the community specifically for the integration of new members - we have been making progress in that direction, ofcourse, but there are some other things that could be done, and the present system is more fine-tuned for a gradual trickle than for major waves.
S02. Greater Influx of Poor Quality Players. I'd say it has less to do with quality (how do you measure their "quality", anyway?) and more with their experience, which makes this irrefutable but I suppose somewhat redundant.
Note that I have never (at least as far as I recall) made much of it myself.
Which, incidentally, is a pretty good argument against North King's concerns about good would-be NESers in other areas. They still do find our way to us - presumably at least to some extent thanks to the presence of other NESers in the Other Games forum and other such congregations. Our population is growing under the present arrangement.
One might also add that this way we get less casual browsing players that might end up leaving abruptly after having already expressed interest and consumed some efforts at assisting them. The people that usually get here are the people who are already somewhat interested in this.
Basically, while it is wrong to talk of the actual quality of NESers, it appears entirely appropriate to talk about the quality of our community as a whole. Indeed, a larger population would also be less unified, and a more open population would be less attached and disciplined. Just look at the ancient Greek city-states, and at their relations with the metics at the time of their peak and at the time of their decline. I, for one, insist that there is a correlation, albeit in all due fairness an indirect one. Still, it's something to remember.
Incidentally, that answers your question: I don't mind seeing new people, but only in small portions so that we could digest them properly.
And lastly:
S03. Radical Alterations to Community Culture Will Result. Mhm.
I'm not convinced that anyone seriously even considered it possible that anybody here would be "shocked" by the fact that we moved. I don't even think there would be any shock involved whatsoever, unless things go much worse than even I might predict.
Not quite. I am not at all opposed to expanding our system as long as it is done in a comparatively safe way - safe and controllable with regards to its effect on the main community. Besides, it seems like a much better way to both gather a genuinely new population and cultivate diversity without our own elites and traditions hanging over the locals more than is absolutely necessary. Indeed, it might even be described as the best of two worlds!
Except inasmuch as it demands a hefty amount of organisation and dedication to pull it off. That's what we call a "bummer".
das
Regeneration In Process
Not convinced. There is more to this than sheer population numbers. We could find the people easily enough if we really need them; the actual structure we want to fill with them is what we should ideally focus on.
Jason - rather funny that your points are so similar to my own. It would've been a cross-post had I not taken so long writing it out due to cat.
Indeed, and benefit us they will, even - nay, especially - through their own failings.
Consider the main NES community as a 3rd world dictator and the NES colonies as his doubles. Is using doubles all that illogical?
(Not my best metaphor, but it works well enough for the main gist of my point)
I ofcourse approve of that. The colonies might work that way just as well, by the way.
Answer me this - when will we be ready to move, in your opinion? In a way even I am not wholly opposed to the idea of moving at a much later point or, alternatively, in the event of a real demographical crisis.
Quite. Though I'd have to break character and express hope that we are strong enough to survive it. It still will be no good, though, unless we are willing to take "what doesn't kill makes you stronger" to a patently absurd level (and it doesn't apply all that well towards societies anyway, not in a good many specific cases at least).
Symphony D.
Deity
Retroactive deletion.
Jason The King
Deity
The chief benefit of a colony is to expand the population (much like moving this forum) without the intended risks I have been talking about, whether the risk is small or not. The consequences of another colony and moving this forum are not equal. A colony would have little to no affect on this forum, while a move will have an affect. Take a look at SCC for example. It is a colony, and has had no negative effects on our community here.
I don't agree with your view of what a "small" game is. A game with 20 or so players, IMO, is not small and is actually a fairly good amount. This is YOUR opinion.
And I see an impingement on freedom when you force the entire forum to move, especially since almost half are against such move, instead of taking the people who wish to expand and creating a "colony" of sorts. That is your freedom.
And you are assuming the best.
Its not that I don't believe you, I just want a second opinion as well. I will do my own assessment in the coming week.
Depending on how you look at it. I see it as a sustainable growth that allows the maximum amount of noobs to be assimilated and achieving the best results. You see otherwise, and I suppose its going to come down to opinion of how big an NES should be lol.
Yes, this is true, but in modern game, assuming that is what you are talking about, the dispersion of players who take important nations is more or less even, focusing on the north Atlantic and East Asia. You only run into problems when a player takes a nation, say Central African Republic, and then expects the mod to do as much coverage for his region as they do for Europe. In those cases, the player should be well-aware that they will have little to no coverage unless they make the coverage themselves. Which will work with our current players, but I fear it won't with a wave of un-assimilated players.
I agree with you, but I don't see that happening in a game of 20+ nations.
Or not fine for the situation, as they don't know how to interact without the MOD and will eventually leave due to boredom.
I'm sorry but whenever you disagree with my opinion, you should not wave it off and dismiss as such. None of these scenarios can be spoken of as fact, mainly because the amount of variables in such scenarios are innumerable. Therefore everything you say, as well as everything I say, is inherently opinion. What you should do is try to change my opinion rather than dismiss it. That is what this thing is all about.
This is acceptable, but how can noobs integrate into our society when MODs keep dismissing them from joining their games?
I have said before, I believe that people who come from stories and tales forums are more likely to write stories and RP in an NES then those from, say, Other Games (who play tic-tac-toe and spend only a few minutes on such games a day). Of course there are exceptions to both assumptions.
And as for what I consider "quality" to be, well, I guess that is going to be an opinion, no matter who you ask.
I don't see such things as a "training NES" or a student-mentor program actually being set up. That requires a high degree of organization among everyone here, and while I have no doubt in my fellow NESers to do such a thing, I don't think there is the will. Perhaps if the forum is actually moved and we are faced with what I have said we might be faced with, then something may be set up, but it will most likely be quickly and shabbily done due to the immediate need and having little precedence on which to work off.
Very well then.
Symphony D.
Deity
Retroactive deletion.
Symphony D.
Deity
Retroactive deletion.
Jason The King
Deity
okay, will continue later, right now I have to get back to updating.
I do beleive growth is a good thing, I'm just going to bring up a point I thought of (and others as you will see if you read above) and hopefully close it, I would like to respond to the other points at a later juncture however (translating Experiments is always fun, way to many technical words 
)
Ok this revolves around Visibility, and the fact that the community has grown to a 'maximum size' (or has incredibly small growth).
The Question is wether a moderator can handle large numbers of people.
Development of such a system is never going to come before the move because there is no reason for its development and only when the conditions require such an infrastructure can it grow or develop, the fact that at the moment such infrastructure does not exist is a non-issue.
Furthermore a growth will not mean a death of the games that we have at the moment, As what will occur is that we will have many games running parallel to each other. Inevitably meaning that we have more Choice in our games, development of rules will speed up as more ideas are bounced around.
Ok the later bit was not part of the argument, regardless I beleive I've answered the question. (having already ignored Symphonys implicit suggestion that he has something already developed).
Lastly;
My question Jason, is why you care so much? As is, it reads that you are opposed to change no matter what form it might take, I find it hypocritical that you seem bent on opposing any change and thus dictating the future of a community you said yourself that you are gravitating away from.
)Ok this revolves around Visibility, and the fact that the community has grown to a 'maximum size' (or has incredibly small growth).
The Question is wether a moderator can handle large numbers of people.
Development of such a system is never going to come before the move because there is no reason for its development and only when the conditions require such an infrastructure can it grow or develop, the fact that at the moment such infrastructure does not exist is a non-issue.
Furthermore a growth will not mean a death of the games that we have at the moment, As what will occur is that we will have many games running parallel to each other. Inevitably meaning that we have more Choice in our games, development of rules will speed up as more ideas are bounced around.
Ok the later bit was not part of the argument, regardless I beleive I've answered the question. (having already ignored Symphonys implicit suggestion that he has something already developed).
Lastly;
Jason The King said:
My question Jason, is why you care so much? As is, it reads that you are opposed to change no matter what form it might take, I find it hypocritical that you seem bent on opposing any change and thus dictating the future of a community you said yourself that you are gravitating away from.
Jason The King
Deity
This will be my last post here for today.
1.) I am not against change. I am all for gradual and responsible change (moving when it gets time to, perhaps after we build up such an infrastructure you spoke of before, and colonizing). I am against the sudden movement of the forum...which I think is in agreement with symphony.
2.) If you check my history on how many times I have said that, you will find out I am possibly the most notorious liar here
. Yes I may try to leave after my NES, but it is highly possible, and if you look at my past attempts, and more or less probable that I will remain here until I am alone with my snakes, 94 years old, and whom all the kids call the "snake man" as they run past my window.
1.) I am not against change. I am all for gradual and responsible change (moving when it gets time to, perhaps after we build up such an infrastructure you spoke of before, and colonizing). I am against the sudden movement of the forum...which I think is in agreement with symphony.
2.) If you check my history on how many times I have said that, you will find out I am possibly the most notorious liar here
. Yes I may try to leave after my NES, but it is highly possible, and if you look at my past attempts, and more or less probable that I will remain here until I am alone with my snakes, 94 years old, and whom all the kids call the "snake man" as they run past my window.
North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
I still have quite a few objections to this argument. Firstly, "thrown away"? What exactly makes this proverbial horde of newbies more likely to throw away traditions than we ourselves are? I don't know about you, Jason, but we've thrown away a lot of traditions. Think about it. The points system for economy used to be a novelty. Now it's a standard. Armies used to be levied in levels. Something more personal to you and me -- the map has been redrawn so many times it's not even funny. I don't know if you still have it on your harddrive, but compare the maps, even from when I joined, to the modern ones. Do you object to those? My point is, we've already changed vastly from the old days, and we needed no "newbies" to do so. Some of the most strident reformers -- das, for example, was here in the very beginning. I know I was pretty much indoctrinated into the ways of NESing, and only after I had grasped the basics and run an NES on the principles of those times did I start changing around my rules.
My second objection: what's to stop you from keeping to the old ways? Pretty much nothing. NESing can have several subcultures; there's nothing stopping that, really.
Again, I suggest you think back to the old days, and compare them to now. I know that the forums have had roughly the same number of people from when I joined until around now.
I direct you to one of my more or less failed NESes: PureNES: Epoch of Glory. It was all in all excellent; myself and Thlayli were doing quite well, at least, initially. But I, for one, collapsed under the pressure after a short while. Why? It wasn't entirely because of school, though I acknowledge that was a factor. As was, to some degree, my lack of commitment. But a far bigger concern in my mind was this: of the fifteen or so truly immense nations that absolutely required players, only three to four actually had them. At some point, I couldn't keep making up the events for half the world; it was like I was trying to play in several NESes and moderate one at once.
Does it really take that vast a chunk of your time to answer the various newbies? I don't really see experience or lack thereof as the crucial factor here. A few obvious cases: Symphony himself, Thlayli, jalepeno_dude, Dachspmg, Lord_Iggy, Disenfranchised, Littleboots, Perfectionist, Birdjaguar, and Niklas had either a very short or no learning period at all; they hit the ground running, and each made a massive impact on the forums.
NESes seem to be moving very rapidly towards standardization of stats; this will greatly help in getting these done more quickly. I know for myself that this is barely a problem anymore. The problem is longer updates, then, and that is entirely up to the moderator.
I would like to submit that becoming a more visible forum could tie in with getting a moderator of our own. With some of the statistics we've collected (around 6% of all CFC posts are in this forum), I think we can do that. This should cut down on the spam and flaming considerably, I think.
Certainly they do find their way to us. My concerns are rather democratic, actually: there are still some who would want to find there way here who never get to. I think remaining in this dusty corner of the forums is a disservice to the community, and to these potential members.
I hardly think we're not getting any good players. I think we could be getting more.
I would like to point out it could be the exact opposite: spammers tend to find more areas to spam in. I know that in my younger days on these forums I started branching out into various forums not because I wanted to invest a lot of time in any one area, but because I wanted to invest very little time in a lot of areas.
And more creative. I would like to say I believe this is fact, not opinion: when you get more thinking minds into one place, you will have more creativity.
Safe? Once again, I ask what it is that you fear.
Let's analyze this in a historical way, since that's what NESers tend to be best at. Is it easier to fend of a crisis in its formative stage, or when it's full blown?
What freedoms are you losing?
You seem to see denying a game to people as a civil right.
Once again, why is this hypothetical wave of newbies going to be completely devoid of common sense? Seriously, have we lost all sight of reality here?
For Christ's sake, though it's silly I'd even have to say this, new players are people, too.
Are you planning to deny multiple people from joining?
If people spend thirty seconds on orders and treat it as a very pointless little game, how exactly are they going to last any length of time? Their nations will die -- or they will in a normal NES.
Seriously, I didn't mean this post to come out so harshly -- but you seem to hold an extremely low opinion of people on other forums. Being a frequenter of both here and the supposed cesspit of doom (Off Topic), I can say that we're honestly not all that much better.
First off, applause for Symphony for delineating all the coherent arguments for and against moving and staying.
Now that I've informed myself more, I'll offer my opinion: we should move.
I'd have to say this, then: if it'll attract new players, I'm all for it. I think that's the most compelling argument we have there. All the people who are afraid of the new players coming up and ruining everybody's fun frankly strike me as a bit élitist.
And if we get a moderator of our own to go along with this new move, I'm sure it'll increase the ratio of quality posts:spam since the mod will crack down on this sort of posting.
Is the "main community" or whatever really that sacred? Let's go with progress. Let's see if we can't run some truly huge games with tons of people.
Now that I've informed myself more, I'll offer my opinion: we should move.
I'd have to say this, then: if it'll attract new players, I'm all for it. I think that's the most compelling argument we have there. All the people who are afraid of the new players coming up and ruining everybody's fun frankly strike me as a bit élitist.
And if we get a moderator of our own to go along with this new move, I'm sure it'll increase the ratio of quality posts:spam since the mod will crack down on this sort of posting.
Is the "main community" or whatever really that sacred? Let's go with progress. Let's see if we can't run some truly huge games with tons of people.
My limited experience as a mod (One 25-30 player game for 15 updates and one 33-36 player game in its 5th update) tells me that an even larger game (40+ players) would be very very time consuming for the mod. For me the tough part is the writing time it takes to inlcude all the players in some meaningful way. The fact that I am pretty automated for everything else helps enormously. I use NPCs sparingly because it they just make the writing more complicated and prolonged.
I think that the number of mods who could manage a "monster" NES with 40+ players very few. If larger games are to tried I think that new structures as Sym suggests are needed. FWIW, I think larger games with very simple, rules and less detail will turn out to be less interesting. Board games (wargame types) went through the same growth patterns in the 70s and 80s: growing complexity and improved realism and an influx of new gamers and game systems. With experimentation we wil find the "top end" of what can be done and keep players. But that coan only occurr if the player base (and soon the mod base) are allowed to expand. Sometimes a little chaos is a good thing. The risk is that it will drive off core players who dislike change that isn't controlled.
Totally unacceptable to me. "Meanness" has no place here. Integration takes time and patience and is always worth it.
Goals:
I think that we should start with trying to figure out what our ideal NESing forum would look like and then figure out how to get from here to there. Having goals is good thing and makes progess more likely to succeed. Goals can be whatever we want them to be. They can be broad or very specific, but specificity makes things easier to measure.
Increase the number of new players who try out NESing.
Add 25% to the number of people actually participating in a game.
Be able to run 40+ person games
Have at least 10 games that update at least once a month.
Once we know what we want to achieve, tyhen coming up with ways to achieve them is pretty straight forward. If we wnat to encourage new player than an action itme might be to have one beginner game going at all times. Such games could be run by experienced mods, or by folks who want to try their hand at modding.
Having goals and following up on action items will require some sort of oversight by one or more people who will remind players of what needs to be done. If the players of this forum are unwilling to accept such oversight, then we are wasting our time.
Once we have a sense of where we are going, then we can figure out the best way to get there. If we cannot agree on what we want this forum to be, then we will make little progress and we will end up in endless dicusssions like this. I think that question of moving should be part of a solution once we know what our goals are.
Some questions to consider are:
How many Mods do we need to keep the game choice vibrant and interesting?
How many active players do we want?
If we want new players, how many per three months can we absorb doing business like we do now?
What could we do to make adding players easier and more successful?
Do we want to encourage lurkers?
How many new players do we need to give NESing a try to end up with each new player that stays?
How many ongoing games do we want?
Is "seasonality" a problem?
How many of the current core players are going to go off to college next fall and are likely to find RL more interesting than NESing?
